International travelers are accustomed to difficulties that may be encountered when communicating in a traveler's native language to a local person who does not speak the traveler's language. These difficulties are compounded when communicating via telephone because hand gestures and other body language may not be used to assist in conveying the meaning of a spoken phrase to the local person who is not fluent in the traveler's native language. Conventionally, travelers have resorted to language dictionaries in order to look up word translations, or ask for assistance from someone nearby who has the ability to translate on behalf of the traveler. However, the use of language dictionaries is cumbersome and time consuming, and having another person for translation may be very inconvenient and costly.
Electronic translation devices are available which allow a person to speak a phrase and have the device provide a spoken translation of the phrase. This electronic advance overcomes some of the difficulties in using conventional dictionaries. However, the use of such devices requires that the devices be carried for use or are otherwise available when needed. Thus, electronic translation devices are not cost effective or are inconvenient in certain applications such as retail stores, airports, hotels, and hospitals.
Retail stores may have large numbers of employees spread over large areas. In this environment, it would not be cost effective for each employee to carry a translation device in order to converse with customers in another language. Further, as the customers generally interact with the employees over large areas of the retail stores, it is inconvenient to either bring the translation devices to the customers or to take the customers to the translation devices. A similar environment exists at airports, hospitals and hotels.
A further disadvantage with portable electronic translation devices is their limited capabilities. For portability and cost effectiveness, these devices inherently must be small and lightweight. These features are typically traded off against limited capabilities such as less sophisticated voice recognition algorithms, less memory for words, and fewer languages.